WARNING: Long essay ahead.
I think it is interesting that Kathy, one of the few horse professionals who has actually held a job somewhat outside the horse industry, is so vocal against what amounts to a Human Resources Disciplinary
Panel.
SafeSport is not a criminal court – it does not and cannot impinge upon consitutional liberties. Those found in non-compliance with the Code of Conduct do not go to jail. They are not on parole. They are free to move about, to vote, to own a gun, and so on.
It’s not a civil court – SafeSport does not award monetary compensation to victims.
It is, however, similar in many ways to the HR department of any large corporation. Let’s call the corporation the United States Olympic Committee, and the NGBs are operational divisions within the larger corporation. The athletes and coaches are the ‘employees’ within the operational divisions that make up the corporation.
At any corporation, there are codes of conduct all employees–from the mailroom to the boardroom–must adhere to, or face consequences. A minor infraction will usually result in a warning from the direct manager, and the consequences escalate if the offense is repeated. So if Joe tells an inappropriate joke in the lunchroom, he gets a verbal warning rom his supervisor (who may also involve HR). If he tells another, he gets a written warning from his supervisor and HR and sent to sensitivity training. A third might get him a ‘last chance’ written warning. The fourth time he tells a salty joke he may well find himself pounding the pavement with his resume in his hand.
It doesn’t matter if Joe is THE BEST employee in all other ways. He failed to uphold the code of conduct, so he is out.
At Acme Widgets Corporation, Sam the National Sales Manager comes up behind Jenny, makes a lewd pass at her and smacks her on the bum. Jenny is distraught, and goes immediately to her manager. Now, back in the day, Sam might’ve got a warning, or Jenny might have been told to ‘suck it up buttercup.’
No more.
Today, Jenny is told by her manager to go straight to HR. She tells them what happened. Sam is called in to face HR. He is put on administrative leave ASAP, and since his role is almost entirely commission based, that means he does not earn any money. HR interviews Jenny, Sam, other employees on the team, the managers, a customer who was in the office that day, even the guy who was restocking the vending machines. IT is pulled in to review all of Sam’s email, his browser history, the call and text records on his company phone. All his expenses are audited.
After gathering all this evidence, HR informs Sam that he is terminated with cause. They remind him that he agreed to abide by the code of conduct when he signed his contract. He will not receive a severance package. He will not receive a reference. This means he will struggle to find employment at the same level in a different corporation.
Sam chooses to hire an lawyer and sue for wrongful dismissal (if his jurisdiction makes that worth pursuing). During that case, the lawyers for Acme Widgets Corporation not only present the evidence they used to terminate with cause. They contact every single solitary company Sam has ever worked for to find out what, if any, discipline was on his file there. Lo and behold, this is his second or third time he has behaved in an inapproprite manner by getting ‘handsy’ with female coworkers. In the worst case, he coerced sex from an intern, telling her he’d be sure she got a full time job on his team when she graduated. The other corporations paid him off to leave and swept the incidents under the rug. Only Acme Widgets had the backbone to stand up for the victim. They not only win the court case, they bring ALL of Sam’s past transgressions to light as well.
So now Sam has lost his job and his income. He has incurred legal fees. His name is MUD in the widget industry. No one will hire him. No one will buy from him.
Do you feel sorry for him?
Stop and ask yourself. Think hard. Do you feel sorry for Sam?
Would you take his side if he got on social media and whined all over the place? Screamed about ‘due process’ and ‘guilty until proven innocent’ and ‘constitutional rights’?
Would you, as his friend, start petitions? Solicit funds to create pamphlets? Start a Go Fund Me so you could fly all over the country to talk with the shareholders of Acme Widgets?
Would you rail against Acme Widgets and its HR department online, spreading falsehoods? Take the word of a misinformed copyright lawyer with an agenda over that of an employment lawyer?
Would you continue to support him when other people known to sexually exploit, lie, cheat, and steal join in his fight? Even convicted rapists? Would you?
Because if Acme Widgets is the USOC, USEF is the sales department and SafeSport is the HR department (and those elected representatives the Overhul group wants to speak with are the shareholders), that is precisely what the ISWG and Overhul groups are doing. They are standing with Sam. They are believing the words of a lawyer with no expertise in this area of the law. They are allowing convicted rapists and child molesters to have a voice renouncing a law that was put in place precisely to silence those MOFOs.
Or would you tell Sam he’s darned lucky to not be in jail? To count his lucky f***ing stars, shape up his behavior and find gainful employment in another field?
Jenny represents all the nameless and faceless victims – many, many of them minors – who have fallen to Sam, who represents all those with a lifetime ban from SafeSport. They’ve lost their jobs, not their liberties. They need to shape up their behavior and find gainful employment in another field.
It is NOT the fault of the victims that these individuals have no other employable skills. That is the fault of the so-called professionals who have failed to be professional. They have failed to abide by the code of conduct they agreed to when they became members of USEF. They have been terminated with cause.
We are sad that Sam is not the upstanding guy we thought he was, but we accept the fact that he lost his job. And we’re in various degrees of shock, outrage and disgust that Sam’s friends are actually not just accepting but encouraging convicted criminals in their fight against SafeSport. They aren’t even making cogent suggestions for improving the HR policies and procedures at Acme Widgets. If they were at least doing that, it would be worth listening to; in the meantime, clean house within your advocacy group.
There’s a saying here on COTH that dates back many moons: “When someone shows you who they really are, believe them.”
We see you. We believe you. We aren’t happy.
